March 18, 2010

Why I Do This

Here at The Ad Contrarian, we allow ourselves one crass, self-serving post a quarter.

Sorry, today's the day.

You see, writing this blog is a big pain in the ass. It has gotten me in way more trouble than it's worth. So from time to time I have to remind myself why I do it.

Once in while, something nice happens. Here's a letter I received yesterday.

Hello Bob,

I happened to chance upon your blog at just about the time when I had begun to look for job opportunities outside of the advertising world, simply because I began to lose faith in this whole business of communication.

I'm not a writer of any sort, so fancy words are not for me, but I would like to tell you that I am simply in love with your thoughts and take on the industry as a whole. For some time now, I have been trying to understand the chaos that I see around me when it comes to agency's and their strategies. I have been questioning everything and everyone around me, right from the branch head to the creative directors to the planners, as to why we seem to be doing all weird stuff in the name of communication. As a consequence of my curiosity, I have been shunned by a few, shoo'd by a few and been fed rocket science bullshit by the rest claiming to be the experts in what they do. The effect hasn't been good on either side of my brain, so I thought it best to exit this industry before I'm forced to exit my own mind.

I found your writing irresistible and it does reinstate my faith in the fact that advertising as an industry hasn't completely gone down the drain yet and that there are people like you who will keep it alive and give it it's true meaning.

Thanks and regards,

Pragya

PS: I am an MBA and I did notice that you have an aversion to MBA's in general. I don't agree with your idea of generalising and placing people in a certain category basis a subject or a specialisation they chose to go into. I do understand that creative guys have a different bend of mind; they're probably born with superior communication skills, but that does not make MBA's a misfit in the industry.

Hello Pragya:

Thanks so much. You don't know how much I appreciate your kind words.

As for my aversion to MBAs (and account planners, strategists, social media gurus, and researchers) I know there are some very good ones out there who are hard-working, smart, and tremendously valuable. But dammit, I need to blame someone.

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Ad Contrarian Says:

"Shakespeare was a storyteller. You're a copywriter.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Sometimes success in the advertising business requires sitting quietly and letting clients proceed with their hysterical delusions."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."